Zulu Hart (49 page)

‘Of course, Inspector.’

‘In that case, I’ll ask you - and not Captain Hart - to accompany me to Scotland Yard. And I won’t be
needing
these,’ he added, pocketing his handcuffs.

‘Before you go, Inspector,’ said George, ‘I’d like to speak with Mrs Bradbury.’

‘Of course, but don’t take too long,’ said the inspector, gruffly.

Once Willis had moved off a few yards, George turned back to Mrs Bradbury. ‘Don’t think for a minute I’m not grateful, but why would you perjure yourself for me?’

‘Because I owe you that.
When I received your letter yesterday, suggesting a meeting, I knew I had to come and explain my shameful part in Sir Jocelyn’s conspiracy. Giving you an alibi for the shooting of that hateful man is my way of making amends.’

‘But have you thought this through? First off, you don’t look anything like Lucy, who
did
spend the previous night with me; and there are bound to be witnesses from the inn who will testify that we left
before
the killing took place.’

‘Don’t you worry about
that.
My current protector is a man with great estates and much influence in the West Country. If necessary, the witnesses will be bribed. There will be no court case. Trust me.’

‘All right, so your alibi might stand up. But answer me this: why, if you’re so contrite now, did you get involved in the first place? How is it possible for any woman to betray a man she’s just made love to? I thought you liked me.’

‘I’m sorry but I did it for Sir Jocelyn.
Us.
I thought he was in love with me, and that we would marry. I was under his spell. Now I know him for what he is.’

‘So what opened your eyes?’ asked George, though he knew the answer already.

‘It was the night he tried to assault Lucy. And he would have succeeded, too, if I hadn’t intervened.’

‘Lucy told me. It seems you’ve already paid part of your debt.’

‘Yes,’ smiled Mrs Bradbury. ‘And your alibi is another down-payment. But I don’t think I’ll ever truly forgive myself for what I’ve done.’

‘Well, I already have,’ said George, taking her hand and kissing it.

‘Thank you, George. That means a lot to me.’

Out of the corner of his eye, George could see Willis pacing impatiently. ‘You haven’t asked me if I did it or not.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t want to know.
And even if you did pull the trigger, I’m sure you had good reason. I must go, but a word of advice before I do.’

‘Yes?’

‘Stay away from Harris.’

He smiled. ‘I assure you, I have no intention—’

‘I’m serious, George,’ she said, grim-faced. ‘He’s a powerful man who never forgets a slight.’

George nodded. And neither do I, he thought, neither do I.

This book came out of a meeting I had with George Mac- Donald Fraser, the creator of the Harry Flashman novels, two years before his death in 2008. I asked Fraser whether he planned to make good on hints in previous books that he would depict Flashman in the Zulu War of 1879. He said no. Six months later I pitched the idea of a novel set in that war to Hodder and
Zulu Hart
is the result.

I knew my central character had to be very different from Fraser’s scurrilous anti-hero. Thus I created George Hart, the son of an English VIP and brought up a
gentleman
, but of mixed Irish-African descent on his mother’s side and therefore a man with a foot in both camps, capable of seeing the British Empire from the perspective of both ruler and ruled. He is, I hope, a character that modern readers can empathize with.

As a historian of Victorian warfare, I was determined to make this book as authentic as possible. George’s VIP father, for example, is a real historical figure who had ‘a penchant for actresses’, secretly (and illegally) marrying one and having two illegitimate sons by her. Both were gamblers and spendthrifts who went on to have moderately successful military careers. Their father fought in the Crimea, but did not cover himself with glory at the hard-fought battles of Alma and Inkerman, where he failed to cope under pressure.

George’s nemesis Sir Jocelyn Harris is a fictional creation but very loosely modelled on that arch-snob and martinet Lord Cardigan, who quarrelled with most of his officers, wounding one in a duel and secretly recording the conversation of another (for which he was condemned and sacked from the command of the 15th Hussars). Cardigan had earlier abused the ‘purchase system’ to rise from cornet to lieutenant colonel in just six years. He would go on to command the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade, and return from the Crimea a hero, but questions about his conduct that day would contrive to dog him.

The brief time George spends with the 1st (King’s) Dragoon Guards in 1877 is a faithful record of that regiment’s activities when it was, as I state, stationed in Manchester. Among its troop officers was a Captain Marter, who later gained fame as the captor of King Cetshwayo in Zululand in August 1879. Its second-in-command, Major Winfield, had a few years earlier invented the game of ‘Sphairistike’, an early form of lawn tennis.

Many of the details of George’s trip out to Africa are based on the diary of a Lieutenant Molyneux, aide-de-camp to Lord Chelmsford, who travelled out with his chief on board the steamer SS
American
in January 1878. Also on board were Lieutenant Colonel Wood, VC, Major Buller, Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Crealock, Captain (later Major) Gossett and Lieutenant Melvill. The flogging of Private Thomas (another fictional creation) is based on an actual punishment parade that took place a year later on board a troopship bound for Durban.

Most of the main events in Africa prior to and during the Zulu War were as I describe: the long deliberation of the Boundary Commission (one of whose members was Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Durnford); the pro-Zulu stance of the Colenso family; the recapture and execution of two (I only mention one) of Chief Sihayo’s wives by his sons and one of his brothers; the gradual build-up of troops on the Zulu border; Sir Bartle Frere’s cynical delivery of an ultimatum that he knew the British government did not support and King

Cetshwayo could not accept; and, finally, the invasion of Zululand and the blunders that resulted in the catastrophic defeat at Isandlwana and, just a few hours later, the heroic defence of Rorke’s Drift.

For the purposes of plot I have taken one or two minor liberties with the historical record. There is, for example, no evidence that Bishop Colenso ever tried to give King Cetshwayo an early warning of the Boundary Commission’s favourable decision, nor that Henry Fynn had a grudge against Chief Matshana and plotted with Colonel Crealock to destroy him. On the other hand it
was
Fynn who convinced Lord Chelmsford that the main Zulu army intended to link up with Matshana in the vicinity of the Mangeni Gorge, thus prompting the general to fatally divide his column on the morning of 22 January 1879. Colonel Crealock, meanwhile,
was
the man who orchestrated the cover-up for the defeat by lying on oath to the court of inquiry that he had ordered Durnford to ‘take command’ of the camp at Isandlwana in Chelmsford’s absence. The actual order - recovered from the battlefield and suppressed for a number of years - had simply instructed Durnford to ‘march to this camp at once with all the force you have with you’. Only when the truth about the battle became known later that year did HRH the Duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief, exonerate Durnford in a secret memorandum that did not come to light until the 1960s.

At our meeting in 2006, George MacDonald Fraser told me the trick to writing about real people was to ‘stay true to the spirit of the person’. I have tried to heed that advice, particularly in the case of Colonel Crealock. There is, for example, no doubt that Crealock was hugely influential in all of the bad decisions that Lord Chelmsford made during the Zulu War. Sir Garnet Wolseley, Chelmsford’s replacement, acknowledged this when he described his predecessor in his journal as a ‘weak tool in the hands of Crealock, whom everyone execrates as neither a soldier nor a gentleman’. Such a man was certainly capable, if not guilty, of the misdeeds that I attribute to him.

For any readers who would like to delve further into the history of the period, I recommend the following books:

 
Daphne Child (ed.),
The
Zulu War Journal of Colonel Henry
Harford, C.B.
(1978)

 
Richard Cope,
Ploughshare of War: The Origins of the
Anglo-Zulu War of 1879
(1999)

Saul David,
Zulu: The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879
(2004)

R.W.F. Droogleever,
The
Road to Isandhlwana: Colonel Anthony Durnford in Natal and Zululand 1873-1879
(1992)

John Laband (ed.),
Lord Chelmsford’s Zululand Campaign
1878-1879
(1994)

Major-General W.C.F. Molyneux,
Campaigning in South
Africa and Egypt
(1896)

 
Donald Morris,
The
Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall
of the Great Zulu Nation
(1966)

 
C.L. Norris-Newman,
In Zululand with the British
(1880) Wyn Rees (ed.),
Colenso Letters from Natal
(1958)

 
Sir Evelyn Wood,
From Midshipman to Field Marshal
(1906)

Writing a novel, I discovered, is very much a
collaborative
effort. The most telling contributions were made by
my editor
Nick Sayers and his assistant Anne Clarke
who together helped
to transform my pig’s ear of an early manuscript
into something
approaching a silk purse. And to everyone
else at
Hodder who
has worked so hard on the book - Kerry, Susan,
Mark, as well
as Kelly, Lucy, Diana, Jason and their teams, in
particular
Asian and Laura - I’m extremely grateful.

A big thank-you, also, to my publicist Richard Foreman who suggested I try my hand at writing a historical novel and who set up my initial meeting with Nick; to my good friend Matt

Jackson, who helped me with plot and character while we were sailing off Turkey; to the novelist Aminatta Forna for much invaluable advice; to my agent Peter Robinson who never voiced any doubts that I could make the difficult transition from non-fiction to fiction; and to my wife Louise who did voice one or two doubts, but who read the manuscript chapter by chapter and provided invaluable advice regardless.

amakhosi
- regional chiefs (sing,
inkhosi)

assegai
— slender iron-tipped spear of hardwood, with variations for throwing and stabbing (see
iklwa)
donga — ravine or dry watercourse with steep sides drift — river ford

head-ringed
- indicative of manhood and adult status (see
isicoco)

iklwa
- short stabbing assegai with a broad, flat blade

impi
— Zulu army

induna
- minor Zulu chief

inkhosi
— regional chief or great man (pi.
amakhosi) insangu
- wild hemp, a popular narcotic for Zulu men and

older
boys inspan - harness cattle to a wagon
isanusi -
tribal diviner or medicine man
isibaya
- cattle enclosure

isicoco
-
black head-ring worn by married men
iwisa
- Zulu name for a knobkerric

knobkerrie
(see
iwisa)
- hardwood club with a thick handle

and
bulbous head kopje - small hill

kraal
- village of huts enclosed by a stockade and containing a

central enclosure for cattle (see
isibaya)
krans — sheer rock face, precipice laager - circle of wagons to protect a camp loophole - a small gap or hole in a wall for firing through nek — broad saddle of land between two hills off-saddle - unsaddle a horse to give it a rest

outspan
- unharness cattle from a wagon

undlunkulu
- a chief’s great (or principal) wife

Usuthu!
- Zulu war cry, derived from the Usuthu faction that

supported
Cetshwayo’s claim to the throne in the 1850s veldt - open grassland
voorloper
- leader of a team of cattle wideawake - broad-brimmed hat